#routine building

Ah yes. The struggle. Don't worry my friend, there's so many resources available to you.

I also struggle with this and I'll say that once you have a routine, and it becomes a habit, it'll stick. There shall be light nonny, I promise you. Don't give up yet.

So, what I like to do is set a shit ton of alarms, 5 minutes apart for a half hour until I have to get out of bed. This makes sure I don't pass out again and that I'll wake up if I do.

I then get out of bed and go to the washroom. I'm on blood pressure meds which help cause I constantly need to use the washroom lol.

While building a routine, it's important you follow it everyday. That means weekends too. It sucks but it helps.

I also like to set alarms on my phone with little notes telling me that I have to switch my task or which task I should be doing. Being able to check off certain things in the morning makes you feel more productive and motivated to keep at it.

If you have ADHD and are medicated, I suggest taking your meds maybe an hour or so (depening on how long they take to kick in) before you actually have to get out of bed. I noticed this early on with my vyvanse that if i took it about an hour before, I'd wake up feeling like I had to go go go.

Though, my meds have worn off and I think I'm rambling. I'll keep researching and we'll figure it out. Check out the ADDitude magazine for ideas too. Typically geared towards parents with kids who have adhd but it's also kinda nice to see what works for others.

So I’m trying a thing! I’ve been working to try and solidify a routine in my life that helps prioritize the things that I say are important but find too easy to push to the side—writing and healthy eating being the two biggest.

I did manage to do laundry on Friday night. I went to yoga on Saturday morning. Did a hardware stop, as well as a supermarket stop. I had driving lessons in the evening and I had my friend come over to groom my hair in the night.

I have not meal prepped. I have not steamed/ironed my clothes for the week.

I am just tired.

I think it’s also because my Flo is doing a weird thing again. But also because my civic duty started on Friday and is a massive disruption to the routine I’m trying to build.

Most people do not fail at productivity because they lack discipline. They fail because their plans disappear the moment the screen turns off. To-do apps promise clarity. But over time, reminders blend into noise. Tasks live inside an app that needs to be opened, checked, and trusted. What quietly works better is not another feature. It is visibility. This is why visual schedules often change…

Visual schedules and timers are powerful tools that have gained widespread recognition in educational, therapeutic, and everyday settings. These tools are often used to support individuals who require structured visual cues to manage their time effectively, stay on task, and reduce anxiety. In this article, we’ll dive deep into how these tools work, explore the science behind them, and discuss…

I often mention to people who talk about retirement that I can’t ever imagine myself retiring, because having a routine has been the only thing that keeps me functioning in my daily life.

(Also I’ve watched my dad retire but that’s a completely different conversation.)

I probably still wouldn’t ever fully retire, because socialization is a problem, but in terms of routine, there might be a solution to that. Granted, using to-do lists in a journal isn’t the most concrete routine, it has a lot of flexibility.

Like deciding that I am going to clean tomorrow instead of today, and that’s fine because as long as it’s done before the week is out, I don’t really care.

But another routine that is slowly being built by journaling, is around journaling. There is a concept within the journaling community around the idea of a ‘reset’. In which after a period of time (often daily, weekly, monthly and yearly) in which the journaler will take time to ‘reset’ their life. Because you’re updating your journal anyways on a daily, weekly, monthly (sometimes even fortnightly or quarterly basis) and yearly basis, it gives an opportunity to use that established routine to do other things.

What that looks like varies from person to person, depending on what is important to them and what their capacity is. 

It’s a concept that I’ve been trying out and so far it seems to help. Granted, taking out all my trash and recycling, and wiping down my personal desk aren’t hard tasks to do, but they are tasks I will absolutely leave until the last moment unless I write it down somewhere. Or apparently build it into a journaling routine.